Kneeling
by LadyDivine91
Summary: When Crowley needs to cope with anxiety, he goes to a quiet place and kneels. Sometimes Aziraphale joins him. When Crowley's needs become slightly more extreme, Aziraphale has to decide whether or not he'll leave his husband to his own devices. Aziraphale x Crowley


_**Notes:**_

_**Written for the 12 Days of Blasphemy prompt 'kneeling'. I have another one for this prompt which will be a bit more lighthearted :) Warning for PTSD, light masochism and cane kneeling.**_

"Crowley? Dear? Are you in?"

Silence greets Aziraphale when he lets himself in to Crowley's flat.

Darkness, too.

A silence and darkness that oppresses every happy feeling he'd carried with him, but it doesn't feel empty.

It feels _mournful_.

There's a presence here in Crowley's mausoleum flat. A presence _and_ a memory. Because along with the darkness, Aziraphale senses a blinding light.

Along with the silence, a deafening roar.

It reaches deep inside him, grabs at his heart and holds it hostage in its iron grip, strangling it till fear rises to the surface.

Aziraphale clears his throat, skimming the fear away. "I was expecting you down at the shop hours ago but you didn't come. So I thought, why not close up and join you? I wasn't really looking forward to seeing anyone but you anyway." He secures the door behind him, hangs his coat next to Crowley's on the coatrack.

Crowley is here.

Aziraphale _feels_ him.

The blinding light, the deafening roar?

They're here because of him.

Searching the flat is a pretense.

Aziraphale knows where Crowley is, suspected within the first half-hour of his not showing. And even though they'd planned on going out for lunch, Aziraphale hadn't been angered by the no show.

Not when he felt the sudden chill and the screaming in his chest, filling his lungs and ribcage as if it was his own.

A side-effect of the body swap.

Before it, he could tell when other supernatural beings were around, heard chimes in his head whenever angels or demons were near.

Nothing like this.

Not the crying.

Not the begging.

Not the negotiating.

Not the praying.

Or the dreams.

The dreams aren't always bad, not always nightmares.

Sometimes they're sweet and hopeful.

And sometimes, they're downright _erotic_.

Since Crowley tends to nap while Aziraphale's at work, _those_ dreams stop him in his tracks, cause him to lose his place.

Make him pack up early and race home.

He wishes it was those thoughts that lured him home today.

The monologue he's reciting is part of the dance.

He needs to act like he doesn't know, behave as normal as possible, another day where Aziraphale comes home from work to his husband waiting for him - watching TV, listening to music, cooking dinner.

Or in this case, kneeling on the floor.

Aziraphale finds him slumped back with his face tilted toward the ceiling, unblinking eyes staring at smooth black stone. He has no posture, looks like he doesn't have a body - just a mess of limbs piled on shins and knees.

His eyes aren't blank. He's looking at something Aziraphale can't see because it's playing behind his eyes. Regardless of the quiet and the darkness of the room, inside Crowley's head, the light is bright, and something roars. Aziraphale catches glimpses of it, but whether it's the fire in his bookshop or Crowley's Fall, Aziraphale won't know till Crowley tells him.

Aziraphale slows as he gets closer, murmurs, "Oh dear God" beneath his breath.

It's not that Crowley had chosen an odd place to kneel. This corner of his garden, shielded underneath his rubber plant and beside his Japanese box bush, is his usual kneeling place.

It's what he chose to kneel _on_ that gives Aziraphale pause.

Crowley had been collecting bamboo blades from an outdoor plant that had gotten too big for its britches. He was going to repurpose them, turn them into a privacy curtain for his balcony. He'd lined the canes up on the floor in preparation for biding them together.

Crowley has chosen to kneel upon _those_, the rods biting into his skin and muscles.

And whether he'd intended on it or not, there's a space beside him wide enough for Aziraphale to join him.

Aziraphale looks at his husband's undone face, and the unforgiving rods beneath his knees. He sighs. He feels tired. Old. Wrung out. It was bound to happen after 6000 years, and it's not all of the time. But their lives have been so emotionally charged lately that he feels it more now than he ever has.

And the ways they've chosen to cope have gone beyond charged.

In some case, they've become extreme.

Living among mortals, Aziraphale knows that people do what they need to do to make it through the day. To survive.

Demons and angels do, too.

This is what Crowley chose - to suffer physically in the hopes of canceling out the pain overwhelming his brain, to combat the noise in his head with the noise in his body.

Aziraphale loves Crowley, more than he's ever loved anything since his first golden moments of existence, since before he had a form that could experience pain or pleasure.

Or love.

Aziraphale can't let Crowley suffer alone. It's part of the vows he made when he married him, that neither of them would ever have to be alone, for good or bad, again.

So he'll do this with him.

"All right, my dear," he says, lowering himself with his strong leg first, then with his stiff limb. "If that's the way it has to be."

Aziraphale settles himself hesitantly on the rods, hissing as he scoots in search of smoother areas, with no knobby bits to impale his tender flesh. Once he's found a spot that suits him, he sits back on his heels and straightens his spine. He must maintain his dignity, after all, on the off chance Gabriel should show up for no reason, as he does once in a blue moon. Then at least Aziraphale can claim he's doing penance for his sinful ways, very Old Testament style, and Gabriel, the asshole that he is, will be pleased.

Like Aziraphale cares. It simply keeps the archangels off his back.

Aziraphale kneels beside Crowley but doesn't confront him. Whatever is going on in the theater of Crowley's mind, he needs to see it through to the end with no interruptions. But he does reach out a hand, his pinkie finger stopping within an inch of Crowley's grasp.

It takes a while, close to an hour, if Aziraphale estimates correctly, but eventually, Crowley takes it.

Hand in hand, side by side they kneel – Crowley with head raised to the Heavens, and Aziraphale with head humbly bowed. He uses this time to catch up on his angelic duties – his rosaries, benedictions, an Apostles' Creed, a confession or two. His knees go numb a short while later, and he counts that as a blessing, but it's neither here nor there. Pain or no, he's willing to wait in the silence for as long as it takes for this tide to pass them by, and for his husband to return to him.


End file.
